A / N : I'm on a Discworld kick at the moment, and it's nearly Christmas . . . which is how this came about. A collection of Hogswatch-themed oneshots, set at varying stages in canon, and involving as many characters as I can find inspiration for. I haven't written properly for a while, and I've never tried the Discworld fandom, so this could go either way, really! But I'm having fun so far. :)
Reviews would be treasured, and I'm open to character suggestions - I've read or am reading most of the 38 books, my only real blank spot being the Witches novels. (I haven't got to those yet.) I'd love to know how I'm doing though.
To start us off - Albert! Set some years after the events of 'Hogfather'.
It was silent, in Death's house. The master had gone on his rounds, taking the rodent with him - FOR COMPANY, as he put it.
It had been years since the Hogswatch fiasco, and the master had – to Albert's eternal gratitude - never taken it into his head to don the pillow and beard again. But he hadn't seemed able to forget. Every year, around Hogswatch, he got a little strange – withdrew into himself (more so than a skeleton in a cowl of blackest night might normally do) – and took the hourglasses of small children from the shelves with a look that was, well . . . as sombre as a seven-foot skeleton, whose very form requires him to assume a permanent grin, could possibly look. It was around this time that Albert could sense them the most, all the dangerous questions lining up unspoken inside that hood, all the ones beginning with little human noises like "why . . .?"
It was best to let the master work, at a time like this.
Albert, of course, was the sort of man who believed sufficient monotony did not inspire depression, but rather helped ward it off.
And so it was that Hogswatch found Albert himself in the kitchen, pudding sizzling in the pan with the finest cuts of pork he'd been able to procure (all gristle and lard lumps, and hardly any meat) because, well, you had to make some concession to the day. Get into the spirit of things, as it were, even if your surroundings refused to acknowledge the passing of time at all, and the master hadn't quite got the hang of holly.
Albert watched the fat spit in the pan, aware that his thoughts were wandering. He was getting old, that was the trouble. The world was too full of new, young things – Susan and that Rat and wizards who used machines to do their magic for 'em, if you don't mind, and now these, what-choo-ma-call-'em . . . clacks towers . . . . . the world was changing, suddenly, it seemed, and living . .. . well, it wasn't really living, in a world where nothing changed. Was it?
He spat on the flagstones. He was thinking too much, again. Stewing in his own thoughts, letting himself get lonely, just because it was bloody Hogswatchnight. (Somewhere.)
He prodded the pudding, grunting in satisfaction as a globule of slowly swelling fat slid beneath the surface.
"Pudding's nearly done," he grumbled aloud.
He sat and watched it bubble for a while, grease crisping the underside to perfection.
Another job. That was what he needed. Another job. Something to take his mind off it.
He was pacing, unaware of it, and then he had shambled to a shabby, painted stretch of wood in the wall which might have been a door and might have been a cupboard, and anywhere but in the house of Death, would have housed the boiler, and some oily rags.
There were oily rags alright, because Albert felt that lack of grease, oil, or general grime in a kitchen was letting the side down somehow, but there wasn't a boiler. Instead, grubby and ashamed-looking, its paintwork dulled by dust . .. a rocking-horse huddled.
Albert regarded it for a long, silent moment.
He patted the wooden flank, and wiped a rag across the horse's neck, spreading the grime a little further. Dust – turned gritty by the damp – clustered into the grooves of the wooden mane, and into carved eyesockets that would never blink it free. Albert stood on one leg, leaning against the door, and surveyed his handiwork with short-sighted intensity. At last he gave a rhuemy sniff of approval, and pulled the horse free.
Well that had helped, hadn't it? Something to do, something solid to look at. Something from the way the world used to be, a crotchety old voice whispered at the back of his mind. Before Hogswatch was all about Captain Carrot Watchman figures and Real Agatean Ninjas. Back when a rocking horse would last you three generations, if the winters were mild. Built to last, these things. Nothing you can change about a rocking-horse.
Albert regarded the horse for another silent eternity, as his mind wandered down this path, halting occasionally along the way to gripe and reminisce about The Old Days in general, when men were men, wizards were wizards and winters, hah, winters were really winters.
Then he swung one leg up, muttering to himself, and settled in the saddle.
The pudding on the hob began to fry dry, smoke curling in black wisps towards the ceiling.
From in front of the fire, there came a steady creaking, as of geriatric bones on old wood. Albert lurched back and forth, humming a tuneless ditty of his own devising. (It was no doubt intended to be festive, but in reality bore more resemblance to the sort of tune composed by the falling-down drunk after a night of overindulgence. The sort accompanied by lewd lyrics about hedgehogs, or custard. Or goblins in pointy hats.)
This continued for some time, and then – shortly before arthritis could set in and bugger all sentiment – Bertie Malich smiled.